Cross-posted with /r/composting

I'm pretty proud of the results of my first year of serious composting (before this year, my method was, "dump kitchen scraps in a pile and turn it occasionally"), so I figured I'd share. Here's a picture of the pile, opened up yesterday for turning/dumping fresh kitchen scraps. Closer view, and even closer. As you can see, it still has a ways to go. It consists of mostly kitchen scraps, grass clippings, and oak leaves, and I guess the latter of those takes quite a while to break down. Here's a picture of it covered with a tarp after I was done, yesterday.

This is actually a combination of eight different smaller piles I worked on throughout the year while I was teaching myself to make compost. The first piles I made were basically just the result of mowing some tall grass/wild plants in the spring--I had thought that since I was mowing up both leaves and grass that the ratio would be just right for composting. I was wrong. Those three piles didn't really go anywhere. I should've added far more leaf matter, kept them wetter, and combined them into one rather than three.

The fourth pile was a combination of kitchen scraps and leaf matter. I had about a 1/2:1 ratio of leaf matter to kitchen scraps. It turned out okay, but of course, I should've added more browns. The fifth pile (featuring a guest who liked the "fresh greens" that I often went outside to spray onto the pile, if you catch my drift...) started out with probably a 1:1 ratio of browns to greens and ended up with a 2:1 ratio, since I started actually figuring things out. I used both mowed-up leaves and mowed-up household paper waste for my browns, and kitchen scraps and grass clippings for my greens. The pile did end up getting fairly warm. I turned it every 2-4 days.

The sixth and seventh piles were nothing but oak leaves mixed with grass clippings. I wasn't great about getting the ratios exactly right, but they were both probably close to 1 1/2:1 browns to greens. Both heated up after I turned them, every few days, and turned out great. I think I do have some pictures, but can't find them.

I started using a tarp with my eighth pile, and that tarp, as well as the increased amount of browns--always at least 2:1--made a huge difference, as previously I had a hard time keeping piles at the right moisture level. Either they'd dry out in the sun or they'd get soaked in the rain. The tarp protected from both and helped insulate the pile, enabling it to get to the right temperature despite being fairly small.

I tried to follow the Berkeley method closely (other than that I added to it every time I turned it). If I added new scraps, I let it sit for four days; otherwise, I turned it every other day. I started adding pretty much anything to it. One time while I was turning it, I found a dessicated dead robin nearby and tossed that in. There was no trace of it the next time I turned the pile.

Fairly recently, I combined all of my piles into one, as you saw above. This makes it a lot harder to turn, but it seems to be going well. Instead of making a new pile and letting this one sit, I've continued adding to this one every week, when I turn it (now that it's this big, it's hard to find time to turn it more often than that). I'm not sure if I'll be able to do this through winter. I've been stocking up on coffee grounds from Starbucks (I have maybe 8 bags of them sitting in the garage?) to help me keep it going, but it gets pretty cold here in Michigan. Maybe I should start a new pile in the winter rather than keeping this one going; I haven't decided, yet. I'm happy to hear your suggestions.

Thanks for reading! Tremendous thanks to /r/composting; everyone there is incredibly helpful, and there are many very knowledgeable folks there. I couldn't have learned this much about composting without them. I've offered them my five invitations, so hopefully we can eventually get the same kind of composting/gardening discussion over here!

I'm hardly an expert after just one year of composting, but I'm happy to answer any questions you have about my methods, about composting in general, or about how you might get started.

Now for some bonus pics, just for fun:

A bear admiring my pile
That same bear about to destroy a bird feeder... D'oh.
Compost/Hugelkultur-in-progress (I'm not sure how people find the time to gather enough woody materials/grass clippings to make a hugelkultur all at once!)

so i know nobody asks for my shit poetry lmao.

i just wanna take a second to thank tildes for being a place for me to get shit off my chest.

i wrote a comment on another site earlier today about catharsis, artistic expression, and depression. and it really made me appreciate the little community we've got going here.

i have a feeling it's the same 5-6 people who upvote my posts whenever they come through, and i love you six to hell and back.

i doubt i'd even get that kinda traction anywhere else.

thank you for the support.

thank you for letting me vent.

much love.

bishop.

it's 3:11 like
the band you like
remember dancing
under flashing lights
ripped off your bra
threw it up high
heading home, arm in arm
what a night
i couldn't see it i
guess i was blind
fetish for pain meant
you loved a fight
you came the loudest
when you held the knife
and drove deep into
my chest that night.

you held me close
and kissed me soft
sat in your lap
and gently rocked
empathic smile and
a lying tongue
you made a promise
that we'd still talk.
behind your back you
held a loaded gun
pulled the trigger took
off in a run
into his arms
into the sun
things are getting dark
in our garage.

dysthymia
is in my blood
and i cant end
it soon enough
but i just do not
have the guts
yet.
water my tongue
with shitty rum
and pray that i
will find the one
and she'll still love
me when i'm drunk
and
dysthymia
i'm getting high
and i don't really
wanna die
it's just i never
feel alive
man
dripping knife
a sacrifice
mr. sandman
please be nice
i don't wanna
see her face
now

it's 3:11 and
i'm home alone
asking questions
that nobody knows
should i buy
some xans
buy
some coke
would i be upset
if i overdose
it's been some months
and still here i am
hooded sweater, scarred
arms, kicking cans
a black sheep,
a lost lamb
still in the kiln -
shell of a man

dysthymia
is in my blood
and i cant end
it soon enough
but i just do not
have the guts
yet.
water my tongue
with shitty rum
and pray that i
will find the one
and she'll still love
me when i'm drunk
and
dysthymia
i'm getting high
and i don't really
wanna die
it's just i never
feel alive
man
dripping knife
a sacrifice
mr. sandman
please be nice
i don't wanna
see her face
now

There's no more sound, not anymore.

Just the thudding of my own heart, deafening in the silence.

Erratic, the bassline pounds out, slowing. Stopping.

Just like everything else.

Behind the visor, I raise my eyes, and see the warships, the victors.

Alone in this dark space, as fragments of what had been my planet race past, I breathe my last.

I close my eyes, conceding defeat.

They had dropped out the sky, and killed and maimed.

They destroyed our way of life, our beliefs, and all the knowledge we had in a day.

Then the raped our planet, stealing her life and resources.

Every crop failed, or was stolen.

The water was siphoned up and into the sky.

They drained our oceans, leaving nothing but rotting carcasses and a new desert.

Our forests were pulped and taken away.

The barren roads of our world were lined with the dead, dying and confused creatures. Some predators survived for a time, hunting... But then they took them as well.

Everything was taken, leaving nothing but sand and us.

I was sent, a final desperate weapon, against our enemies...

Sabateur.

Desperate plans rarely work.

Instead, I found myself suspended in the vaccuum of the world... As the world was ripped apart for her final resources.

They harvested, as I lay in this lonely space, my air running out, unable to do anything.

There was no one left to save.

Tears fell from my closed eyes, as I waited for the last moment.

I know the story is a bit cliche, but it came when I was exploring Elegy for a Dead World, looking to get my creative side going a bit.

I find tiny stories like this helpful to set a mood, or get out of one, especially when my writing is blocked.

I'm hoping to see some inspired short stories, so you guys can serve as my selfish want of inspiration, or some critique of how terribly I've used this meme.

I am currently looking for an apartment because I am moving away for my masters. My girlfriend and I have contacted 15-20 people and we have received 2 answers. Both tried to scam us.
I noticed he was scamming because of the way the message was formed, it has a very typical structure. If anyone wants I can share it. I also noticed the pictures looked too good, a reverse image search showed that it was from a hotel.

This time I had the email address, so I sent him a mail asking whether this link also contained pictures of his apartment. Behind that link there was a picture of goatse lol. I am not sure if imgur counts my views twice, but so far it has had 3 visits. Just felt the need to share

We talked about this about a month ago, and it looks like the change is now actually being enabled. The remaining creddits I had have now been converted to "Coins", and the site's updating with interface elements changing over.

Here's the announcement post: https://www.reddit.com/r/changelog/comments/9ik900/hey_rchangelog_were_starting_to_roll_out_some_of/

Here's the new page for Reddit Premium: https://new.reddit.com/premium

And the page for Coins: https://new.reddit.com/coins

The interface for giving an award (what used to be "gilding"): https://i.imgur.com/xvExuIn.png

The Platinum and Silver awards don't seem to be enabled yet, but here are the icons for all 3 awards: https://i.imgur.com/m7iUhmB.png

I was testing topic tag filtering and it didn't seem to work as I expected.

I was trying to filter out a topic with a main.sub style tag, but without a main tag.

I set the filter to main expecting everything nested undeneath that to be hidden, but it did not.

Is that just not implemented yet, or am I just not understanding the feature correctly?

My reminder didn't go off and I didn't realize until today, berate me for being late.

Anyway, what have you been watching/reading this week?

Feel free to talk about something you saw that was cool, something that was bad, ask for recommendations, or anything else you can think of.

If you want to, feel free to find the thing you're talking about and link to its Anilist, MAL, or any other anime/manga database you use!